Bourdain Vs. The Left

Anthony Bourdain is an acquired taste. He happens to be a taste I’ve acquired. Watching the one-hour Bourdain “Parts Unknown” episode about Lyon is the only time a television show has ever made me travel to a place. I’ve seen that episode six or seven times, and probably will watch it that many more times in my life. I actually ate (with James C. and another friend) at one of the restaurants in the show. All of which is to say that I love Anthony Bourdain, even though he’s something of a bastard; in fact, I love Anthony Bourdain in part because he’s something of a bastard. A magnificent bastard who would take that as the compliment I mean it to be. Anthony Bourdain opened up the glories of Lyon to me, and I will always, always owe him for that.

Bisley: You’re a liberal. What should liberals be critiquing their own side for?

Bourdain: There’s just so much. I hate the term political correctness, the way in which speech that is found to be unpleasant or offensive is often banned from universities. Which is exactly where speech that is potentially hurtful and offensive should be heard.

The way we demonize comedians for use of language or terminology is unspeakable. Because that’s exactly what comedians should be doing, offending and upsetting people, and being offensive. Comedy is there, like art, to make people uncomfortable, and challenge their views, and hopefully have a spirited yet civil argument. If you’re a comedian whose bread and butter seems to be language, situations, and jokes that I find racist and offensive, I won’t buy tickets to your show or watch you on TV. I will not support you. If people ask me what I think, I will say you suck, and that I think you are racist and offensive. But I’m not going to try to put you out of work. I’m not going to start a boycott, or a hashtag, looking to get you driven out of the business.

The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we’re seeing now.

I’ve spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good. Nothing nauseates me more than preaching to the converted. The self-congratulatory tone of the privileged left—just repeating and repeating and repeating the outrages of the opposition—this does not win hearts and minds. It doesn’t change anyone’s opinions. It only solidifies them, and makes things worse for all of us. We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we’ve done.

While traveling a few months back, I ended up chatting with a divorce attorney, who observed that what we’re seeing in America right now bears a startling resemblance to what he sees happen with many of his clients. They’ve lost sight of what they ever liked about each other; in fact, they’ve even lost sight of their own self-interest. All they can see is their grievances, from annoying habits to serious wrongs. The other party, of course, generally has their own set of grievances. There is a sort of geometric progression of outrage, where whatever you do to the other side is justified by whatever they did last. They, of course, offer similar justifications for their own behavior.

By the time the parties get to this state, the object is not even necessarily to come out of the divorce with the most money and stuff; it’s to ensure that your former spouse comes out with as little as possible. People will fight viciously to get a knickknack neither of them particularly likes, force asset sales at a bad loss, and otherwise behave as if the victor is not the person who goes on to live a productive and happy life, but the one who makes it impossible for the ex to do so.

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50 Responses to Bourdain Vs. The Left

Firstly, Congrats on your anniversary! Very many happy returns To you and your better half.

About the McArdle essay, she reminded me of the marriage researcher John Gottman. He thinks that one of the biggest marriage killers is contempt for your partner and I see that contempt everywhere I look. The other side is always wrong, stupid, evil and hates America. I think she also hits it absolutely on the nose.

I couldn’t quite figure out if Bourdain was a liberal or not from watching “Parts Unknown” but if there were more like him (and some of the liberal commenters here) I think I’d be able to find more in common with them. I love his show and I DVR’d the Cuba episode over a year ago and have watched it three times since it aired. Completely fascinating; the dude is a chameleon. The episode he did in Iran with that imprisoned journalist (name?) was also very good.

I am fine with Bourdain statements other than they seem a self-important righteous. Do we really care what he thinks? In my case I work with people across the nation and I really don’t care about their politics. Texas seems like a great place to live and work. And in terms of divorce proceedings, the left has to deal with President is calling us a bunch losers! And I thought Obama did not reach out enough!

What we also forget is that in every town in “flyover country” there is one misunderstood soul yearning to escape to the coast and in every big city in “flyover country” there is a minority of malcontents who have nothing but contempt for the “gun culture” they see all around them and who are disconsolate that Hillary lost and don’t have more of a clue as to why she lost than the New York Times does. I guess the reversal is true on the coasts. I know any talk of a common culture across all classes, regions, and beliefs is an illusion, but sometimes I think all we have is contending groups of individuals, each group alienated in its own way.

Nothing to add except to say this is right on point. Everyone wants to be right to the point of demonizing the other. Sadly to the detriment of this nation.

I wonder if instead of study abroad, High Schoolers would spend a semester at a school in a different state. Californians in Wisconsin, Texans in NYC, Floridians in Utah, etc. Different parts of the country have lost a connection to each other.

Yeah, I saw Bourdain’s comments a few days ago. Right on. I’ve seen several episodes of his programs over the years, and you’ve got to give Bourdain credit: he calls them like he sees them.

Speaking of the liberal-conservative divide, I’m really scared over the level of vitriol the brouhaha over the so-called Russian hacks is producing. I just saw a comment on another website arguing that anybody who has ever posted a comment sympathetic to Putin and/or critical of Obama should be regarded as an enemy combatant. This comment had hundreds of “up votes.” Scary stuff.

So, we now have a situation where half the country is convinced that Russia robbed their princess of her rightful throne and is foaming at the mouth for revenge. The other half of the country denies that Russia did it.

Personally, I doubt Russia did it. I would not be shocked if the CIA is framing Russia for the benefit of the military-industrial complex. We know the CIA has engaged in these types of dirty tricks many, many times before. Plus, former British ambassador Craig Murray says that a pro-Sanders DNC insider gave him the e-mails and told him to give them to Wikileaks, which he did. That sounds very plausible to me… (And, being a political news junkie, I happen to have what I think is a fairly strong hypothesis as to who exactly within the DNC leaked the e-mails.) Yet has the mainstream media reported Murray’s words? No.

But I digress. The point is that this irreconcilable conflict over basic facts can be seen on issue after issue. The problem is not that the left and the right have differing opinions. That is normal and healthy. The problem is that they differ on the facts. As Al Gore said a few years ago, there is no longer a shared reality in this country.

Bourdain had a great show on Houston about six weeks ago, focusing mostly on the massive immigrant population in that area. He met with immigrants from India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Nigeria. In almost all cases, these were people who came here with nothing, and after 20 or 30 years, through talent, hard work and the opportunities that the US offers, had achieved great success. A couple of the Indian immigrants said that they were ready to kiss the ground in gratitude to America.

That episode show should be required watching for both those on the right, who question the value of legal immigration, and even more so for those on the left, who believe that America oppresses people of color. Colin Kaepernick, in particular, should be forced to watch it.

“the one between red and blue states”
This is a bad habit of thought which has real and dangerous consequences. There ARE no red and blue states. Or only a few of them.

What there are are red and blue counties or localities. Almost every metropolitan area, and almost every majority non-white (black, Mexican, or Indian) rural area in the US is blue. And almost every majority white rural area is red. That’s the reality.

What’s a red state? It would be a state that’s so red, even the cities and college towns are red. By that definition, Oklahoma’s probably America’s only “red state”. What’s a blue state? A state where even white country folks vote Democratic. By that definition, Vermont and Massachusetts are probably the only blue states.

Why is this dangerous? If you talk red and blue states you can talk about splitting up, you can make maps of a greater “Canada” and “Jesusland”, and you can talk about “Calexit”. You can be proud that Louisiana is “red” and is the home of blues and the Mardi Gras–well it can’t be both, since the Louisiana that is the home of blues and Mardi Gras is blue. And Californians can be proud of being blue, and how their state feeds the nation and has the sequoias–but actually the California that feeds the nation and has the sequoias is red.

Can rural America survive without cities? No.

Can cities survive without any rural areas? No.

Anybody with a brain knows that.

So therefore blue cities and red countrysides need each other.

That’s the reality that the “red state” “blue state” mode of thinking wants you to overlook.

As President Washington had an interesting habit. He refused on principle to accept delegations or proposals from states. But he welcomed them from localities and counties. He understood that if you group Americans by states, you make splitting up look plausible. But if you group them by localities, you see it’s impossible.

So anyone who talks about red states or blue states is an accomplice, witting or not, in the division of the United States. When you hear people do it, please call them on it.

Anthony Bourdain is like Blue cheese–either you love him (or it) or you don’t. I’m not a particular fan of Blue cheese, but I bloody love Anthony Bourdain. After Batman, he’s my favourite American anti-hero, and I mean that with utmost respect. He’s flawed. He puts on no airs. No BS. Yet, he’s real. He has a way of showing you the world in a way you’ve never seen it, through the messy yet artistic creation of food, good beer, wine or other spirits and fearless conversations about issues occurring in whatever socio-cultural milieu he happens to visit that week. But none of this is without the warm humanity that oozes from the harshness of the reality of existence itself–like an eff-ing good lava cake with the most disgustingly unctuous chocolate at its center, he might say.

I’ve watched that episode from Lyon, France. It stirred me the same way. As did an episode from Cologne, Germany, shot just weeks after last New Year’s Eve’s unfortunate attacks on women. Bourdain certainly had no reservations asking about that incident–the elephant in the room, as he called it.

I don’t know; he’s a different breed of Liberal, not that I have ever truly pegged him as such–ever. But you know, who really cares. He has a way of truly cutting through life’s often forced embellishments and window dressings and all of that noise and just giving it to you straight, like a good single malt–neat. He’s a good egg in my books.

Don’t know much about Bourdain, and don’t much care, but I would agree that more civility is needed.

On all sides.

Many of the folks most offended by flyover country jokes, are the quickest to slander city dwellers and other parts of the Democratic coalition, and vice versa. And frequently, insulting the opposition is a successful way at riling up the base–and someone had to win the election.

“Many of the folks most offended by flyover country jokes, are the quickest to slander city dwellers and other parts of the Democratic coalition, and vice versa. And frequently, insulting the opposition is a successful way at riling up the base–and someone had to win the election.”

You forgot something – we as godless elitist liberals deserve it, so Rod will continue to find every fruitcake on the Left and publicize them while tut tutting every article on Jezebel, Salon, or every other left-ish website that ever says anything bad about social conservatives ever.

Funny that he doesn’t care for Maher – I watch both of them on occasion, but it has always seemed to me that they both have the same smug, condescending, “hey, I’m just tellin’ it like it is/last honest man” bad-boy schtick… chalk it up to the narcissism of small differences, I guess.

Alek says:
That episode show should be required watching for both those on the right, who question the value of legal immigration, and even more so for those on the left, who believe that America oppresses people of color

Most people on the right don’t ‘question the value of legal immigration’. We question whether the immigration system is being managed with the whole country’s long term benefit in mind, or whether it’s being ‘managed’ for the financial and political benefit of the rich and powerful.

I am not convinced that both sides are equally to blame. Having had my fair share of shouting matches om unmoderated forums, i must say that i have never had a personal death threat from the online Right.

That distinction came from the Obama and Hillary-loving liberal side.
J’accuse!

He’s referring to academe, the media, a slice of the legal profession, the social work and mental health trade, and fragments of what Glenn Reynolds calls ‘the administrative class’. He’s not referring to the man in the street. A modest section of the adult population is in gatekeeper positions which allow them to distort and disfigure public life terribly.

The whole idea of “The Loyal Opposition” and the idea of “The Common Good” have been lost. We do have two Americas and I see it in my own family. Hillary voters seem to think that Trump voters are a bunch of semi-literate, redneck bigots, and Trump voters seem to think that Hillary voters are a bunch of effete, semi-treasonous Bolsheviks.

There is a lot of anger and contempt between the two Americas. I wish that I had an answer, but I do not.

I never know what to say about this whole cold war, because I’ve always been identified as the enemy by both sides regardless because of peculiarities of their prejudices. As a conservative woman in a field that I think must be coded as some kind of bastion of liberalism, conservatives typically look at me with suspicion before I’ve even said much and go on the attack, so I don’t have wonderfully warm feelings for my own side of the aisle. I find liberals are more tolerant though they never mistake me for one of them. Odd isn’t it?

I’ve found it hard to deal with all of my adulthood and therefore am not willing to defend either side too much before they deal with some of their own bad behavior.

What there are are red and blue counties or localities. Almost every metropolitan area, and almost every majority non-white (black, Mexican, or Indian) rural area in the US is blue. And almost every majority white rural area is red. That’s the reality.

What’s a red state? It would be a state that’s so red, even the cities and college towns are red. By that definition, Oklahoma’s probably America’s only “red state”. What’s a blue state? A state where even white country folks vote Democratic. By that definition, Vermont and Massachusetts are probably the only blue states.

Trump won all the metropolitan counties in Alaska, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

In these states, he performed as follows:

Arkansas: 5 of 6 metropolitan counties, accounting for about 1/2 that population.

Indiana: 13 of 17 counties, accounting for about 1/3 that population.

Kansas: 4 of 6 metro counties, accounting for north of 80%.

Kentucky: 5 of 7 such counties, accounting for 1/3 of the population.

Missouri: 8 of 12 such counties, accounting for about 40% of the population.

Montana: 2 of 3 counties, accounting for about 2/3 of the population there.

Tennessee: 11 of 13 counties, accounting for over 1/2.

Utah: 5 of 6 counties, accounting for about 40% of the metro population there.

Generally, Trump won the small cities, the 3d tier cities split between the two candidates, and the 1st and 2d tier cities went for Clinton.

One of the worst things about the two liberalizations of the past 40 years (first the sexual-and-divorce revolution and then the market revolution of Reagan) is that they both have heavily encouraged people, all over the political spectrum, to think in very, very transactional ways. If you’re not thinking transactionally, you are a sucker. As an example, if everyone else in your business is playing political games, stepping on each other and backstabbing to climb that ladder, and you’re busy trying to fulfill your internalized obligations as a good employee, you’re not seen as a good person, you are just an unsavvy dupe who doesn’t understand how the world works and will be exploited, used up, and then cast off.

Personal virtues undermine your ability to behave transactionally.

I grew up in a very true believing Mormon family, and the world I came from was overwhelming oriented around cultivating the sorts of personal virtues that, when everyone else is also cultivating them, ends up producing the kinds of people that are mostly positive and pleasant to be around. It produces civilization. Charity. Humility. Kindness. Honesty. That deeply old-fashioned stuff. My community didn’t always live up to those virtues. They didn’t always get it right. But those virtues were at least acknowledged, as was the idea that you, and everyone around you, would be spending your whole life trying to improve yourself in those ways, that it was a constant struggle, and that that was a necessary activity for everything to hold together. You lost freedom by having to cultivate yourself, it’s true, but the benefit you gained by everyone else cultivating their selves was so enormous that it dwarfed what you lost.

There was, in this world view, a very strong sense that your obligations were to yourself, society, and God. You ought to behave as a good husband, not because your wife deserved it, but because you had self-respect, and it was important to the broader community and to God. We had similar notions about fulfilling most social roles. Whether or not your spouse “deserved it” didn’t enter into the picture.

The problem with this way of being, I suppose many would say, is it’s fertile ground for abusers or sociopaths, for con-men and charlatan. And I’ve certainly seen that. It’s a way of being that generates a great deal of trust, and trust is a resource that lousy people can exploit. And the roles people have to fulfill can be constraining. Etc etc.

Nevertheless. I now live in a city neighborhood, surrounded by well-educated liberals, working mostly with professors of various stripes, and one of the main things that is more and more sticking in my craw (especially now that I have kids) is the almost total lack of any conception of personal virtues in the communities I am in, or that those things might need to be constantly cultivated.

The people I’m around are not, at all, the moral monsters I was warned about as a conservative religious kid. Rather, they’re just the moral equivalent of someone 30 pounds overweight who watches TV all the time and sits in their recliner. In their world view, personal virtues are either something related to your own very private religious tradition, deeply unseemly to bring up in public, or else the people I’m around might hold some kind of warmed over old half-thought-out Marxist or feminist critique that the idea of personal virtues, their cultivation, and a sense of obligation to civilization generally, are all just tools of capital to keep the lowers classes in line and thus to be rejected out of hand, or the tools of patriarchy to subjugate women, or the old vestiges of pre-scientific irrational tradition, or… Let’s just say I’ve seen more than a few “Well-behaved women seldom make history” bumper stickers in my time.

And, largely, in their world view, the only virtue that is permissible to police in the public sphere is tolerance. That’s pretty much it. And so there is no real strong public stigma about being arrogant, or dishonest, or borderline alcoholic (this one is common), or gluttonous, or uncharitable, or spiteful, or gossipy, or greedy, or overweening, or frivolous… Not everyone embodies all these vices, of course. Far from it. I know plenty of nice, decent people in this group. But the people I’m around seem to have lost even a common vocabulary or framework for resisting people who revel in these vices. I think there’s an ambient fear that it would be intolerant to stigmatize most of those things (unless its in some sort of social sin context, like the greed of corporations or something). The idea that personal virtue is a thing to be cultivated through hard work does not exist, except in the various stories about tolerance, in which case the volume is dialed to 11.

I’m going on at length about this demographic because it’s currently my dilemma – my wife was raised in this world, we have small children, and the thought of raising my kids in it is distressing me more and more – but the truth is, my experience with Americans more broadly suggests that the collapse of these notions of virtue and their cultivation reach much, much further, and certainly aren’t confined to anywhere on the political spectrum.

When I left Mormonism, it was mostly over its metaphysics, its history, and its claims about the justification of its authority. That seemed very important to me when I was younger. It’s still important to me now, and why I would be hesitant to return to Mormonism.

But as I get older, more and more, I think the culture of the church got much of the big stuff right – personal virtues like humility and charity and honesty and self-respect matter, they are not arbitrary vestiges of particular traditions, they don’t come especially naturally, and they need to be constantly exercised, no different than good diet and exercise is necessary to be physically healthy. It’s not automatic. They are not states of nature.

I’ve been using the specific bad-marriage analogy, from the linked texts, for a while. There is a part of me that suspects part of what makes all of the current red state / blue state bile so acute is that this is the logical endpoint of a people who have turned largely to transactional thinking and have abandoned any shared notion of values cultivation (except for “tolerance” at a bird’s eye view, social sin level). We don’t have charity towards each other because we don’t really value charity, period. We behave arrogantly towards those we disagree with because humility isn’t a virtue in a transactional world, it’s a weakness. Spite, despite being horribly destructive, feels really, really satisfying in the moment, so why not be spiteful? It feels good.

I think we can’t get along because we are no longer willing to form ourselves into the sorts of people who can get along.

Art Deco:
My figures differ somewhat from yours. Based on the results at Politico.com, I can say:

Oklahoma I already conceded is indeed an actual red state and I agree that you can add West Virginia to the list.

Alaska, it’s hard to say, since it’s not divided into counties, and I couldn’t find a regional breakdown. But since Trump’s margin was far less lopsided than in the other states you mentioned, I doubt that it is really “red” all through.

In North Dakota, Trump did win the metropolitan areas and even the college town’s county, but not the Rez. In Wyoming, he won the college town, but not Jackson Hole, which has the state’s busiest airport.

And in the others, Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota, Trump lost the college towns (Moscow, Lincoln, and Vermillion) and in Nebraska, Trump lost Omaha, and in South Dakota, he lost the Rez.

(and note, I’m using county results, so when I say, for example, Trump lost Vermillion, I mean, Trump lost the county in which Vermillion is–which means he lost the actual college town of Vermillion by a huge margin.)

So there may be from two to four red states in the US. Not a whole lot.

The point I made stands, the speaking of “red states” vs. “blue states” is really inaccurate, and the granulation is at the levels of localities. Which means, as I said, there’s no way to divide America cleanly into red and blue. So we should stop acting like there is.

There is a predictable thread to your introduction to the post. Hard to imagine living in Louisiana and not being interested in food. Hard to imagine being interested in food and not having a great time in Lyon. Bourdain is just the middle man.

[NFR: Yeah, but there are lots of other places I would have gone before Lyon, if not for Bourdain. — RD]

So, we now have a situation where half the country is convinced that Russia robbed their princess of her rightful throne and is foaming at the mouth for revenge. The other half of the country denies that Russia did it.

Personally, I doubt Russia did it. I would not be shocked if the CIA is framing Russia for the benefit of the military-industrial complex.

The best write-up I have seen is by a security firm (not contracted by the DNC) called WordFence, who contracts mostly to owners of wordpress sites. This is simply due to the investigation actually demonstrating some technical sophistication, as distinguished from WaPo’s really illiterate stuff. The upshot is basically the data publicly offered by the DHS and CIA is not conclusive. But I think it is highly likely they are withholding most of the information they have, particularly human intelligence sources, so it is tough to say.

You might want to re-think that, Rod. Bourdain is on the record as advocating the genocide of white people.

During his recent Cologne episode, he and his guest discussed the migrant-refugee crisis in Germany. Bourdain expressed his hope that Germans would collectively mix with the Middle Eastern visitors, and by doing so, he argued, eliminate racism.

Interestingly enough, his remarks appear to have been removed from the CNN show transcript, but there are recordings available on other sites.

As someone of German heritage, I can’t in good conscience support someone like Bourdain. We need to combat and eliminate these genocidal attitudes.

Laguna Beach Fogey,
Genocide is not committed by marrying someone– but by murdering them (and many others like them). The -cide suffix basically means “kill” No one, for example, would say “Prince Phillip committed regicide by marrying Elizabeth II”.
This is emphatically not to advocate mass intermarriage of anyone with anyone, but you do need to come up with a new word (or maybe an old one, like “miscegenation”) is you want to criticize it.

I guess this comes from not liking BBQ. I thought the standing consensus was that, in fact, we have not taken the same history classes, do not watch the same tv shows or eat the same cereal. We do not share a culture. Even amongst the Blue Islands there is a difference between the NE and NW.

re: Pepin and Bocuse – two men worthy of more than a little respect in he culinary world. What I object to is the two-faced posing of Bourdain; he puts on the smug and superior persona with just about everyone, but the moment he meets someone who might unmask him as a mediocre line cook, all of a sudden he falls to his knees.

We get enough of that crap from politicians. I have no use for that kind of man when it comes to food. He’s as genuine as a $3 bill.

candles, your comment is brilliant. I could not agree more, and I do not think I would agree at all if it weren’t for reading this blog for the past few years and also having kids of my own. You’re right that virtues have real value and need to be cultivated; they just don’t happen automatically.

The time for liberals to reflect was before my sons had to use the bathroom with a man-hating bearded lesbian, before my church had to shutdown wedding receptions for fear of a sodomite lawsuit, before my daughter’s private school had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a legally compliant statement of faith in case anal sex enthusiasts sue, before they took my doctor away from me and raised rates, before the public schools tried to teach my children they are inherently bad for being white, and on and on and on.

Conservatives will leave liberals to their own. It’s called federalism. Want liberal government, move to a liberal state.

Liberals won’t leave conservatives alone. Our traditional way of life must be destroyed, the liberal thinks.

No. The time for self-reflection is over. The time for unlimited political conflict has arrived. Liberals must be dispossessed of their culturally and financially elite position in society, their political influence eradicated forever, their institutions destroyed, their leaders imprisoned. Them or us. Deus vult.

“Unlimited political conflict” is destructive as all hell. We sampled that in 1861-65. Should we go back for a second helping– with nuclear weaponry now on the buffet? I should think not. Some things are more vital and necessary than political dominance. You invoke some very vicious demons– and should they actually manifest I can guarantee they will not be tame to your will, but will turn and devour you and yours as well.

@JonF
“We sampled that in 1861-65.” It’s interesting that most people interpret the lesson from those years as a rebuke against trying to leave the Union vs. a rebuke against those that would maintain the Union at any cost.

“Some things are more vital and necessary than political dominance.” Absolutely, I would include having a political system that actually works. I don’t think the US government has been functioning at acceptable levels for some time now.

Lincoln used the metaphor of marriage to argue that the Union was indissoluble. We have no fault divorce now for good reason. It’s time we bring the same thing to politics. If our civic relationship has gotten to the point of unhealthy hatred, it’s time to end the relationship. McMegan’s conclusion that we are stuck with each other so make the best of it is insulting.

Good commenter melmpus just proved my point, as he repeats a series of scare stories from right-wing media and authoritarian heretical preachers. The left didn’t weaponize talk radio, attack the very idea of good government, and use racist appeals to undermine the New Deal. The Right did that. Google ‘Powell Memo’ for more.

Are their legitimate debates to be had about sexuality, gender, religious freedom, and church v. state? Yes, but screaming about ‘bearded lesbians’ and ‘sodomites’ is NOT the most constructive way to go about it.

Re: It’s interesting that most people interpret the lesson from those years as a rebuke against trying to leave the Union vs. a rebuke against those that would maintain the Union at any cost.

In my comment, as should have been obvious, it was offered as a comment on what happens when people refuse to accept that their desires must be limited in order to live in a society with others and instead resort to violence so as to have their way.

And as I said above there is no way to break up the United States that would not leave huge numbers of people in the “wrong” part of it. Here’s a better idea: bring back the very old-fashioned idea of “Compromise”. There is nothing out there we fighting over, no, not even abortion, where we could not hand out half loaves to both sides. “My way or the highway” needs to be buried at a crossroad with a stake through its heart.

I keep coming back to this thread, and I’m really not quite sure why Bourdain bugs me so much. Part of it is that Bourdain, while being just slightly critical of the Left right now, is about as reliable a partisan as the Left will ever find.

I’m just also tired of lionizing people who are fundamentally jerks. Yes, you’re a great TV host and you go to some great places. But you’re a schticky jerk who picks fights with other chefs, sneers at the declasse, and puts on various personas as the situation warrants. Really not an admirable character.

That is not to say we shouldn’t watch his shows or buy his books, but let’s not kid ourselves about who he really is.

If our civic relationship has gotten to the point of unhealthy hatred, it’s time to end the relationship. McMegan’s conclusion that we are stuck with each other so make the best of it is insulting.

Actually, its simple geography. The notion of certain states “seceding” from the United States was ludicrous from start to finish. Unlike many European national boundaries, state boundaries were generally not drawn to be defensible borders of independent sovereign entities. The thirteen colonies in many respects were not either. They could have distinct existences because all were under the protection of the Crown, and absent that protection, HAD to unite or be picked to pieces.

The United States wanted New Orleans because the commerce of the Ohio, Missouri, and upper Mississippi valleys, and all their tributaries, flowed to the world through Louisiana. IF the confederacy had somehow been allowed to establish itself, there would have been running warfare across the continent to the Pacific for 100 years or more. Plus, a substantial minority of the southern population had been born citizens of their native state AND of the United States, were heirs to the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention, and had no intention of giving up any of that.

Generally I agree with JonF on the value of compromise. Everyone has to give a little if we are not going to live miles apart from each other, with all the vulnerabilities that entails. I also believe in as much federalism as we can handle without flying apart. No, some states cannot be permitted to deprive their citizens of the equal protection of the laws. Yes, states may differ on what exactly constitutes a marriage.

But let’s look at compromise in terms of a hot button issue like, slavery. John Quincy Adams offered a compromise: a constitutional amendment that after a certain date in the 1840s, slavery would cease to be hereditary. That wasn’t a moral absolute that satisfied the abolitionists, and it wouldn’t have freed a single enslaved person. I could envision a variety of difficulties along the way, including masters demanding their existing slaves mate to produce as many offspring as possible before the deadline, and enforcing abortion on pregnant enslaved females after the deadline, since the children wouldn’t grow up to be a saleable commodity. But, over a generation or so, slavery would have ceased to exist, and parents would have known that at least their children would have a better life. Also, we would have saved ourselves 600,000 dead.

This compromise was unacceptable to the slave-owners, who proposed their own compromise: slavery should be prohibited after 2000 AD. I have some strong objections to that. There are some people who have been dear to me since they were two years old, who were born before 2000 AD, who likely would still have been enslaved. Large scale plantations had gotten to the point where the enslaved property was a large part of invested wealth and net worth, and sale of offspring a substantial income stream. Loss of future demand and purchases would have wiped out that wealth, as would closing the territories to slavery.

When compromises can’t be worked out, we end up with civil war. We also generally end up regretting that the whole thing couldn’t have been worked out with less bloodshed. But its easy to be jingoist about your side’s mobilization when its all parades and martial music and fresh clean uniforms and kisses from the girls and old ladies serving banquets. By the time your best friend gets half his skull blown off, its too late.

Siarlys:
“Actually, its simple geography.” I’m not sure this has been a real factor since we went to war on ponies. When Berlin and Paris are a two day drive in a tank things flatten out. ICBMs make rivers and mountains meaningless.

Compromise is a nice concept. However, I’ve seen very little of it in the last few decades. Since Gingrich in the ’90s a good chunk of the country sees it as a dirty word. Take abortion. We could say that no abortions after the first trimester or viability except in certain situations. However, some folk can’t stop there. Their god voice says conception and they can’t leave the moral decision to those involved because, you know metaphysics.

There are obviously a lot of States that have split in the last few decades with no war or blood shed. It is possible.

Quite apart from cultural differences throughout the country. I’d argue that the population and economic differences from one coast to the other render our current political system unworkable. Direct democracy is constrained by the number of citizens the system can actually handle. I think that our current system has hit its upper limits.

I think this is true for Canada as well but more along economic lines. It’s difficult to accommodate both the manufacturing sectors of central Canada with the service industries of BC. Ontario may still be able to sell car parts but the low Loonie is causing havoc on property values in BC.

Cascadian, I don’t think you really paid much attention to WHY I argued that it was simple geography. It concerns commerce as much as military defense. When you ride to war on ponies, trying to fight over a straight line drawn across a prairie is not at all conducive to putting up a defense. And even with ICBMs, taking control on the ground still requires infantry. ICBMs to not lead to secession, they lead to mutual annihilation.

I don’t think we disagree on the difficulties of compromise. I’ve endorsed Erin Manning’s compromise on abortion, which is far less than she feels is morally imperative, but its about as much as she thinks she can get, and I agree. But I’m only one voice.

The cultural differences are actually ALL OVER the country. Many states’ electoral votes were decided by a few thousand votes out of many millions. That means those states can’t simply flip because “we all agree…” Rod personally knows liberals who are native to Louisiana, so he’s told us. Kerry-Edwards got more votes in the southern states than in New York and New England, and GW Bush got millions in the latter states. Of course the distribution was a bit different, but its not like Czechs over here, Slovaks over there, draw a line, everyone’s happy. And none of our “economies” would work in the plural — they are all inextricably interconnected.

We’ve never had a direct democracy, because it doesn’t work for a population much larger than a New England town meeting.

Siarlys, I’m not suggesting that anyone fight over anything, least of all a line in the prairies (I think this upsets prairie folk).

There’s a good chunk of frenemies on this site of all different persuasions. I don’t think the comments section here are representative of anything other than a well managed blog. The beauty of TAC is that it is so unrepresentative. I disagree with RD on most days but always tip my hat to the community
he has created.

I’ll take full ownership of Cascadian rednecks or slednecks. The dry side is not evil. That doesn’t mean that some self sorting wouldn’t be appreciated.

Some of my fondest memories from my hard left days are of the Cascades. The people I worked with were all what an SJW might call rednecks. Beautiful people, and not in the Hollywood sense. There were even a few old time hoboes, who actually rode the rails and stopped off in the missions. (In Utah, there is Joe Hill House also.) There are some sensible possibilities to separating northern California and southern Oregon to form a distinct state. Ditto for separating southern California, and northern California. But as states, not independent nations. It would also redress the senate and electoral college balance a bit. But what would Lee Greenwood do with his song about our fifty states? The flag would be a muddle trying to arrange 53, well, 54 with Puerto Rico.